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- What's Mine's Mine - 70/89 -

The chief answered with a nod.

"I have other daughters to settle--not to mention my sons," pursued
the great little man, "--but--but I will find a time to talk the
matter over with Mrs. Palmer, and see what I can do for you.
Meanwhile you may reckon you have a friend at court; all I have seen
makes me judge well of you. Where we do not think alike, I can yet
say for you that your faults lean to virtue's side, and are such as
my daughter at least will be no loser by. Good morning, Macruadh."

Mr. Peregrine Palmer rose; and the chief, perplexed and indignant,
but anxious not to prejudice, his very doubtful cause, rose also.

"You scarcely understand me, Mr. Palmer," he said. "On the
possibility of being honoured with your daughter's hand, you must
allow me to say distinctly beforehand, that I must decline receiving
anything with her. When will you allow me to wait upon you again?"

"I will write. Good morning."

The interview was certainly not much to the assuagement of the
chief's anxiety. He went home with the feeling that he had submitted
to be patronized, almost insulted by a paltry fellow whose
consequence rested on his ill-made money--a man who owed everything
to a false and degrading appetite in his neighbours! Nothing could
have made him put up with him but the love of Mercy, his dove in a
crow's nest! But it would be all in vain, for he could not lie!
Truth, indeed, if not less of a virtue, was less of a heroism in the
chief than in most men, for he COULD NOT lie. Had he been tempted to
try, he would have reddened, stammered, broken down, with the full
shame, and none of the success of a falsehood.

For a week, he heard nothing; there seemed small anxiety to welcome
him into the Palmer family! Then came a letter. It implied, almost
said that some difficulty had been felt as to his reception by EVERY
member of the family--which the chief must himself see to have been
only natural! But while money was of no con sequence to Mr. Palmer,
it was of the greatest consequence that his daughter should seem to
make a good match; therefore, as only in respect of POSITION was the
alliance objectionable, he had concluded to set that right, and in
giving him his daughter, to restore the chief's family to its former
dignity, by making over to him the Clanruadh property now in his
possession by purchase. While he thus did his duty by his daughter,
he hoped the Macruadh would accept the arrangement as a mark of
esteem for himself. Two conditions only he would make--the first,
that, as long as he lived, the shooting should be Mr. Palmer's, to
use or to let, and should extend over the whole estate; the second,
that the chief should assume the baronetcy which belonged to him.

My reader will regard the proposition as not ungenerous, however
much the money value of the land lay in the shooting.

As Alister took leave of his mother for the night, he gave her the
letter.

She took it, read it slowly, laughed angrily, smiled scornfully,
wept bitterly, crushed it in her hand, and walked up to her room
with her head high. All the time she was preparing for her bed, she
was talking in her spirit with her husband. When she lay down she
became a mere prey to her own thoughts, and was pulled, and torn,
and hurt by them for hours ere she set herself to rule them. For the
first time in her life she distrusted her son. She did not know what
he would do! The temptation would surely be too strong for him! Two
good things were set over against one evil thing--an evil thing,
however, with which nobody would associate blame, an evil thing
which would raise him high in the respect of everyone whose respect
was not worth having!--the woman he loved and the land of his
ancestors on the one side, and only the money that bought the land
for him on the other!--would he hold out? He must take the three
together, or have none of them! Her fear for him grew and possessed
her. She grew cold as death. Why did he give her the letter, and go
without saying a word? She knew well the arguments he would adduce!
Henceforward and for ever there would be a gulf between them! The
poor religion he had would never serve to keep him straight! What
was it but a compromise with pride and self-sufficiency! It could
bear no such strain! He acknowledged God, but not God reconciled in
Christ, only God such as unregenerate man would have him! And when
Ian came home, he would be sure to side with Alister!

There was but one excuse for the poor boy--and that a miserable one:
the blinding of love! Yes there was more excuse than that: to be
lord of the old lands, with the old clan growing and gathering again
about its chief! It was a temptation fit to ruin an archangel! What
could he not do then for his people! What could he not do for the
land! And for her, she might have her Ian always at home with her!
God forbid she should buy even such bliss at such a cost! She was
only thinking, she said to herself, how, if the thing had to be, she
would make the best of it: she was bound as a mother to do that!

But the edge of the wedge was in. She said to herself afterwards,
that the enemy of her soul must have been lying in wait for her that
night; she almost believed in some bodily presence of him in her
room: how otherwise could she account for her fall! he must have
been permitted to tempt her, because, in condemning evil, she had
given way to contempt and worldly pride. Her thoughts unchecked
flowed forward. They lingered brooding for a time on the joys that
might be hers--the joys of the mother of a chief over territory as
well as hearts. Then they stole round, and began to flow the other
way. Ere the thing had come she began to make the best of it for the
sake of her son and the bond between them; then she began to excuse
it for the sake of the clan; and now she began to justify it a
little for the sake of the world! Everything that could favour the
acceptance of the offer came up clear before her. The land was the
same as it always had been! it had never been in the distillery! it
had never been in the brew-house! it was clean, whoever had
transacted concerning it, through whatever hands it had passed! A
good cow was a good cow, had she been twenty times reaved! For Mr.
Palmer to give and Alister to take the land back, would be some
amends to the nation, grievously injured in the money of its
purchase! The deed would restore to the redeeming and uplifting
influence of her son many who were fast perishing from poverty and
whisky; for, their houses and crofts once more in the power of their
chief, he would again be their landlord as well! It would be a pure
exercise of the law of compensation! Hundreds who had gone abroad
would return to replenish the old glens with the true national
wealth--with men and women, and children growing to be men and
women, for the hour of their country's need! These were the true,
the golden crops! The glorious time she had herself seen would
return, when Strathruadh could alone send out a regiment of the
soldiers that may be defeated, but will not live to know it. The
dream of her boys would come true! they would rebuild the old
castle, and make it a landmark in the history of the highlands!

But while she stood elate upon this high-soaring peak of the dark
mountains of ambition, sudden before her mind's eye rose the face
of her husband, sudden his voice was in her ear; he seemed to stand
above her in the pulpit, reading from the prophet Isaiah the four
Woes that begin four contiguous chapters:--"Woe to the crown of
pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a
fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that
are overcome with wine!"--"Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where
David dwelt! Add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices; yet I
will distress Ariel."--"Woe to the rebellious children, saith the
Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a
covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin!"--"
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and
trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because
they are very strong; but they look not unto the holy one of Israel,
neither seek the Lord!" Then followed the words opening the next
chapter:--"Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes
shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from
the wind, and a covert from the tempest." All this, in solemn order,
one woe after the other, she heard in the very voice of her husband;
in awful spiritual procession, they passed before her listening
mind! She grew cold as the dead, and shuddered and shivered. She
looked over the edge into the heart of a black gulf, into which she
had been on the point of casting herself--say rather, down whose
side, searching for an easy descent, she had already slid a long
way, when the voice from above recalled her! She covered her face
with her hands and wept--ashamed before God, ashamed before her
husband. It was a shame unutterable that the thing should even have
looked tempting! She cried for forgiveness, rose, and sought
Alister's room.

Seldom since he was a man had she visited her elder son in his
chamber. She cherished for him, as chief, something of the reverence
of the clan. The same familiarity had never existed between them as
between her and lan. Now she was going to wake him, and hold a
solemn talk with him. Not a moment longer should he stand leaning
over the gulf into which she had herself well nigh fallen!

She found him awake, and troubled, though not with an eternal
trouble such as hers.

"I thought I should find you asleep, Alister!" she said.

"It was not very likely, mother!" he answered gently.

"You too have been tried with terrible thoughts?"

"I have been tried, but ha^ly with terrible thoughts: I know that
Mercy loves me!"

"Ah, my son, my dear son! love itself is the terrible thing! It has
drawn many a man from the way of peace!"

"Did it draw you and my father from the way of peace?" asked
Alister.

"Not for a moment!" she answered. "It made our steps firmer in the
way."

"Then why should you fear it will draw me from it? I hope I have
never made you think I was not following my father and you!"

"Who knows what either of us might have done, with such a temptation
as yours!"

"Either you say, mother, that my father was not so good as I think
him, or that he did what he did in his own strength!"

"' Let him that thinketh '--you know the rest!" rejoined the mother.

"I don't think I am tempted to anything just now."

"There it is, you see!--the temptation so subtle that you do not
suspect its character!"